Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans. . . .
"Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church," Putnam said. "They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues."
Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church.
This movement away from organized religion, says Putnam, may have enormous consequences for American culture and politics for years to come.
"That is the future of America," he says. "Their views and their habits religiously are going to persist and have a huge effect on the future."
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
How the Religious Right Unchurched America
ABC News has run a story about "Young Americans Losing their Religion" that reveals the long term effects of conservative religion's thirty-year war on separation of church and state:
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4 comments:
I'd not really thought about it before, but it makes sense that when one ties faith to a political agenda which is largely supported by aging rural folks in the South and Midwest, you run the risk of losing the young urban folks altogether. Imagine what a seismic shift this might entail when the Baby Boomers start dwindling relative to subsequent generations. The mind boggles...
Not only is tying "faith to a political agenda" a turnoff to the "young urban folks", when it's done for political reasons, as this was clearly done, both in its specificity and with its clear consultation/direction of non-"faith" conservatives -- more importantly, it hollows out the "faith" itself.
Surely it undercuts the Christian kerygma to tie theological and ideological beliefs together in the public mind. There is very little crossover between Jesus' message and the GOP platform.
Damion, I had not notice ANY "crossover between Jesus' message and the GOP platform."
What I had noticed is the wholesale GOP platform condemnation of most of Jesus' message. They did simply ignore some aspects of it.
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